Irrationality Marches On;
The Proposed Flag
Desecration Amendment
by Ed Menken
www.OpEdNews.com
By a vote of 286 to 130, the
U.S. House of Representatives today passed a bill calling for a
constitutional amendment banning the desecration of the American
flag. The Senate will next consider the measure and, since the
Republicans picked up four seats in that body, there is hope among
supporters that the amendment might pass this time, after four
previous attempts since 1989 failed to garner the two-thirds
majority required in the Senate.
Thus far, opponents of the
amendment have argued that, as the Supreme Court decided in 1989,
flag burning – distasteful though it may be to most of us – is
protected by the free speech provision of the Constitution. Given
the right-wing successes in recent years to identify and
pursue “hot-button” issues that seem to resonate with “mainstream”
America and put Democrats in an awkward position (though they
certainly blew it big-time with the Terry Schiavo tragedy), this
proposed amendment requires an opposing position that goes beyond
the academic matter of free speech. Indeed, I think the proponents
of the amendment should be asked a battery of simple questions.
Simple questions, if you will, for simple minds.
For example, how far will
the amendment go? If my t-shirt that bears the stars and stripes
gets soiled, or shrinks in the washer, and I decide to tear it
into pieces for garage work, will I be subject to arrest? And what
about my coffee mug with the flag on it; if I break it am I liable
for a penalty? What if I decide to remove that huge flag decal
from my pickup truck, and it tears during the process, can I be
sent to jail? Or how much jail time would I get if I went to the
local Wal-Mart, bought a flag, then came home and threw it into
the fireplace in my living room? Will the flag protection police
be spying on me?
What if my grandson decided
to paint the stars and stripes on a large piece of paper for a
school project, and then tore it up and placed it in the trash
when he came home? Would he be carried off to juvenile detention?
And what about that leather motorcycle jacket I’ve got with the
huge flag on the back? Am I doomed to keep it forever, or can I
discard it in a nearby dumpster when it’s all weathered and worn
and falling apart?
The question really is,
which flag are these brilliant legislators talking about
protecting from desecration? If it’s the Betsy Ross flag that
rests comfortably in the Smithsonian, well, that one is already
well protected. If it’s any of the flags on government buildings,
anyone caught doing harm to those can already be charged with
destroying government property and be sent to prison. If some
idiot decides to tear down the flag that’s on the pole outside my
house, he can and would definitely be charged by me with
trespassing and destruction of personal property…and I might well
do him some bodily harm while waiting for the police to arrive.
The flag becomes personal
property whenever someone purchases one. Are they nevertheless
prohibited, as a matter of law, from doing what they please with
it? Will the proposed amendment be accompanied by a strict set of
written rules for handling and storing the flag? Will those rules
be included in the packaging of all flags to be sold, and will
they include the possible penalties for mishandling? How many
months or years in jail, and how much of a fine? And will the
government also issue strict guidelines about how and under what
circumstances the flag can be used, or represented in art, or
applied to a garment, or silk screened onto fabric, or what kind
of fabric or paper or other material is acceptable?
The proposed amendment,
passed by the House, currently reads, “The Congress shall have
power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the
United States.” So, I ask again, which flag? In what form? On what
material? Owned by whom? Manufactured only by companies authorized
by the Congress? Or will the law not apply to a flag that I
produce myself, or the one that my grandson made for the school
project?
I volunteered for and was
honorably discharged from the U.S. military. I am a patriot, which
means that I still take seriously the oath that I took many years
ago, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States from all enemies, foreign or domestic…”, and I
consider the First Amendment, with its guarantees of free speech
and freedom of religion, to be the most sacred. Whether it’s
during a parade or prior to the Superbowl, I often sing along with
the National Anthem and still usually get goose bumps when I see
old glory waving in the breeze. But I am ashamed of those
counterfeit patriots who would so cynically try to politicize that
flag that I’m so proud of. That wonderful symbol should be revered
for what it is, the greatest symbol of freedom the world has ever
known. And that includes the freedom to spit on it, stomp on it,
and even burn it, as long as it doesn’t belong to someone else,
because any single flag that is so treated is but one of millions,
and all the rest will, as Francis Scott Key wrote, still proudly
wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
To propose a constitutional
amendment to protect “the flag” is, for anyone who thinks it
through, an insult to the intelligence of the American people, an
affront to all who served or now serves in uniform, an assault on
the Constitution, and an attack upon the very foundation of the
nation that the founders bequeathed to all of us. And the fact
that it is clearly politically motivated, intended to further
divide us at a time when we so desperately need to find our unity
again, makes it all the more despicable.
I would encourage any and
all readers to write to their senators and ask some of the same
questions posed here...or formulate your own in similar fashion if
you prefer. The Senate is supposed to be the more thoughtful,
deliberative body in the Congress. Every one of them should think
long and hard about the irrationality of this proposed amendment.
Ed Menken
Houston, TX
Ed Menken edmenken@yahoo.com
is a semi-retired strategic marketing and media relations guy, a
former "dot-com" company founder (the company went belly-up
when the tech market crashed in 2001) and, among other things, a
life-long news and current events sponge. During my more active years
in the marketing and PR business, my firm (which I owned with one
partner in NYC), developed and executed the world-wide marketing and
PR strategy for the academy award winning film "Gandhi", and the
national publicity campaigns for "Silkwood", "Absence
of Malice", "The World According to Garp", and several other
major motion pictures.
